Friday, 4 March 2011

With Easter coming late this year

Easter is the trickiest of holidays, as it moves around due to the cycles of the move. As the Doeberl Cup (and other tournaments) like to use the 4 day break to hold their events, the differing Easter dates can both affect the number of entries to the tournament, and the actual holding of other events.

This year Easter is quite late in April, and indeed runs over another Australian holiday, ANZAC Day. In the past there have been tournaments organised to take advantage of this normally separate holiday, but not this year (although the Melbourne Chess Club have just decided to organise an easter weekender and call it the ANZAC Day Weekender).

However the lateness of Easter has also freed up the normally busy March/April calendar. The Dubbo Open (always popular with Canberra players) is now on the 9th & 10th of April, while the Ballarat Weekender (12,13,14th of March) may benefit from the longer gap between it and the Doeberl Cup.

As for numbers, I always feel the Doeberl gets better numbers the later Easter is, but I must confess this assertion isn't backed up by any analysis. Of course if it is true, then the Doeberl should get more than 250 players this year :)